The League of Nations
Senator Norm Coleman (R, Minnesota) has called for the resignation of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, primarily over the massive corruption in the former Oil-for-Food regime. Hyperlink. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that calls for Annan's removal are premature. I'm sorry, Mr. Secretary, but in this matter you are morally in the wrong. Mr. Annan was the UN official in charge of peacekeeping when UN peacekeepers stood by and watched the Rwandan genocide of 1994, as Secretary-General he did everything he could to keep Saddam Hussein in power, and he has stood by mostly silently as the Arab janjaweed have slaughtered 70,000 black Africans in the Darfur region of Sudan.

By and by, PEOPLE ARE STILLING DYING IN DARFUR and Sudan still sits on the UN Human Rights Commission. There are African Union "monitors" in Darfur, mostly Nigerian and Rwandan troops. Where the monitors are operating, the janjaweed have been curtailed, but there aren't enough AU troops to secure the whole region. A new UN resolution is needed before more African Union troops can be sent in. Once again, the United Nations is turing a blind eye to genocide. I'm sure that's the high ideal President Roosevelt when in mind when he spearheaded the UN's formation.

When Yasser Arafat died in November, the UN flag outside the Secretariat in New York flew at halfstaff, a universal sign of respect and mourning. When President Reagan died in July, the flag flew bright and high at fullstaff. The inescapable conlucion is that the UN held Arafat in far higher esteem than Reagan. During the current intifada, the Palestinian mayor of Bethlehem proposed a truce and an end to Palestinian terrorism. Arafat replied, "Whoever thinks of stopping the intifada before it acheives its goal, I will give him 10 bullets in the chest." The United Nations mourned this man more than the man who said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Nice.

I am asking honestly, can any of you defend the UN's actions here? Please, is my critique out of line?

In the troubled country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, authority over peacekeeping operations (now in their ninth year and counting) has passed from NATO to the European Union. That's fitting and appropriate, as European troops always comprised the majority of the NATO forces in Bosnia. The EU will do a fine job of administering the peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I just thought this might be a fine opportunity to point out the following:
(a) When President Clinton lead NATO into Bosnia in 1995 to stop the ethnic cleansing, he did so without UN approval.
(b) When Yugoslavia first began to disintegrate and the Croatians and Serbians went to war, the Europeans asked the United States to stand back and allow them to defuse the crisis. In the famous words of the foreign minister of Luxembourg, "The hour of Europe has arrived."

Hello, Kitty
I love my cat. But sometimes, I don't know what to do with him. With elderly, semile humans, you can put diapers on them. Sam's gotten so that though he still goes in his box, about half the time he forgets to bury his poop. Oh, Sammy. So I go in there with a little shovel and just throw a little litter on top.